


The Curse

by MissTyler



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, The Mummy (1999) AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-12 21:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTyler/pseuds/MissTyler
Summary: An AU of the movie the Mummy (1999), but with the genders switched.





	1. Chapter 1

Thebes, City of the Living. Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti I. Home of Imhotep, Pharaoh's high priest, keeper of the dead; birthplace of Anck-Su-Namun, Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her; but for their love, they were willing to risk life itself. Seti I himself ordered her death.

To resurrect Anck-Su-Namun, Imhotep and his priests broke into her crypt and stole her body. They raced deep into the desert, taking Anck-Su-Namun's corpse to Hammunaptra, City of the Dead, ancient burial site for the sons of pharaohs, and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. For his love, Imhotep dared to cause anger by going deep into the city, where he took the black Book of the Dead from its holy resting place.

Anck-Su-Namun's soul had been sent to the dark Underworld, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars. Anck-Su-Namun's soul had come back from the dead, but Pharaoh's bodyguards followed Imhotep and stopped him before the ritual was complete. Imhotep's priests were condemned to be mummified alive; as for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the Hom Dai, the worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible had never been done before. He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all eternity. The Medjai would never allow him to be released. For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater with the strength of the ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility.

**HAMUNAPTRA 1923**

 

During 3.000 years, men and armies fought over this city not knowing about the curse. And during those 3.000 years, the “Medji”, descendants of the Pharaoh sacred bodyguards, fight to protect this land. They extend their army on the pipping hot sand of the Sahara as a small group of invaders aim their guns at their direction. Captain Harkness is not afraid, he’s done that more than several times, end even if he wasn’t sure these people would run soon as the real fight began, he’s not the kind of man to show fear.

Rose, on the other side of the battle, watched as the former captain, and their leader ran off in his horse, leaving their group without leadership.

“I guess you were promoted”.  Adam commented. Usually no one would give her, a woman, such a power position, but she was used to be the one who had to deal with the shit men didn’t want to.

“Stay in your positions!” she shouted in a broken French she’d learned in her travels.

The army of Captain Harkness approached closer and closer.

“You’re with me on this one, right?” She asks her improvised right-hand man, never taking her eyes away from the enemy, or her hand from the trigger of her gun.

“Your strength gives me strength”.

The enemy gets closer.

“Steady!”

Too close, in fact.

Adam drops his weapon and runs “Wait for me! Wait for me!”.

“Steady!” She goes again, and then, “FIRE!”

They shot and kill as much as it is possible, but they’re too many and have their own horses, besides guns and swords, while her side waits for them behind tiny walls that don’t go past their waist lines. Rose manages to put down as much as she can while running to the ruins of an old Egyptian city. This was such a bad idea.

On her way she runs across Adam again, on his own way to the entrance of the main pyramid of the city, he was giant a coward, but he had his smart moments.

“Get inside! Get Inside!” Rose yells at him as she follows his lead. “Wait, don’t you close the door! Don’t you close the door!” But he does. _Fucking men._

She manages to duck low enough to escape the bullets and out run them going through small alleys where their horses can’t pass through, her lungs feel like they’re on fire right now, but she can’t stop… Until she does. There’s no way out, she realizes as she stands by an old brick wall. She turns around, looks at the three men aiming their guns at her and then… Nothing. Her body is not full of bullet holes. The men the were following her start screaming in Egyptian, and their horses neighing in distress until it all goes silent. Rose’s eyes were closed, she notices now, and opens one at a time.

There is a massive dog-like god sculpture in front of her, and for some reason it makes her body shiver. Something is not right. The sand in her feet feels odd, and she can hear a cacophony of growling and other angry animal like sounds. She takes a step behind.

The sand under her feet rises almost attacking her, telling her to leave.  So, she runs. She’s not the one to tell the sand they’re wrong.

 

“The creature remains undiscovered”. Captain assumes, barely keeping his relief away from his voice. He keeps his composure as the last of those who fought by his side return, and he watches the lady general run away alone.

“And what about that one?” one of his men questions by his side. “Shouldn’t we kill her?”

“No.” she turns around and finally notices them. “The dessert will kill her.”

Rose resumes her scape

 

**CAIRO, EGYPT**

**3 YEARS LATER**

“Sacred Stones, Sculpture and Aesthetics, Socrates; Seth volume 1, volume 2, volume 3 and… Tuthmosis? What are you doing here?” He looks around from the top of his stairs “T… T… T… oh, there it is.” He can see it from the opposite shelf. It will work, he has long arms, he’s not going to fall… again.

Luckily that’s not what happens, not so luckily the stairs unattach from the book shelf and he finds himself juggling with his own body weight in order to keep from falling and breaking a bone, or worse, a museum piece. “Help!” he tries, nobody is on this floor today. Then the stairs turn one more time, going against his first shelf, and this shelf against the one behind, and this shelf against the one behind, and soon they’re all on the floor, like him.

“Oops”.

“What?! But- Wha- Oh my- LOOK AT THIS! Sons of the pharaohs! Give me frogs, flies, Locusts- Anything but you!” Harriett, the museum curator screams at him, “Compared to you other plagues were a joy!”

“I’m so very sorry, but it was an accident”.

“My dear, when Rameses destroyed Syria, that was an accident. You. Are. A. Catastrophe! Look at my library! Why do I put up with you?!”

“Well, you put up with me because I can… Read and write ancient Egyptian and can decipher hieroglyphs and hieratic and… And I’m the only person within a thousand miles who can properly code and catalogue this library, that’s why!”

“I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons, that’s why!”. She takes a deep breath “Now, I don’t care how or how long it takes, but clean up this mess!” and walks away, leaving John alone with the unwanted and persistent thoughts about his deceased parents.

He takes his jacket off and cleans up his round glasses on his sleeve, the damn thing couldn’t stay five minutes without being covered in dust. And said glasses almost flew out of his hand when a sudden and odd sound came from the other room.

John eagerly leaves the books on the floor, ready to investigate the disturbance. “Hello?” he knew there wasn’t anyone there, or at least shouldn’t have. Thieves? In the middle of the day? He takes one of the torches on fire on the all, – one of those things Harriett decided that would give the Ancient Egypt room a more realistic feeling – and keeps going. “Abdul?” he tries “Mohammed?” nothing “Bob?” but none of his work mates answer.

Now it seems to be raining cats and dogs outside, and after a thunder strikes outside, another crippling sound comes from the other side of the room, a tomb to be precise. His shoes click loudly on the floor as he approximates to the grave, and with his heart almost inside his mouth he takes a look.

“AAAAAHH” the corpse inside and John scream.

“Have you no respect for the dead?!” he shrieks at his sister trying to climb out of the tomb.

“I do, but sometimes I’d rather join them, and you’re just too easy”. She laughs

The poor dead bastard is all over the place and now he has to put it back, “Well I wish you’d do it before you ruin my career the way you’ve ruined yours!”

“Oh, my, dear, sweet baby brother, I will have you know that at this precise moment my career is on a high note.”

“High note, HA! And baby brother? You’re five minutes older. Donna, I am not on the mood for you. I’ve just made a bit of a mess in the library and the Bembridge scholars have rejected my application form again. They say I don’t have enough experience in the field”. John sits down, defeated.

“Hey, now. You will always have me, you big old mummy.” He smiles, growing up with Donna as a sister was not an easy task, but she genuinely cared about him and his dreams. And after their parents passed away, she was all he had. “Besides, I’ve got just the thing to cheer you up!” and she stars digging up the poor corpse again.

“Oh, no. Not another one worthless trinket, Donna, if I take to the curator another piece of junk i-”

But it is not. Not this time, Donna is sure. She can almost feel it. For years she tried to help her brother, to find something that actually worth something, something that would take him to the spot she knew he deserved, after all these years being told he wasn’t good enough… This time she knows she did.

“Where did you get this?” he takes the tiny box, studding it’s saying. His brain working doubles to figure it out.

“In a dig down in... uh, Thebes. My whole life I never found anything, John. Please, tell me I found something.”

He manages to open the mechanism.

“Donna…” he manages to say, breathless.

“Yes?”

John pushes out a big piece of papyrus, “I think you’ve found something”.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say for myself

“Come, come! Step over the threshold! Welcome to the Cairo Prison, my humble home!”

John awkwardly followed his sister and the cheerful guard that introduced the place as a circus owner would introduce his freakshow in a heavy accent. He had no intention of spending the following day looking for people in a Cairo prison but here he was. After the curator refused to buy, or even acknowledge the existence of their find, John decided that they didn’t need her help, and could investigate alone if it was the real deal or not. And then Donna seemed to pull out of her hat the name of a woman who could, possibly, help them in their quest to prove that they actually found a map to Hamunaptra.

“You told me you got it from a dig down in Thebes!” he half murmured half screamed at her.

“Well I was mistaken…”

“You lied to me!”

“I lie to everybody, what makes you so special?”

“I’m your brother!”

“That just makes you more gullible”.

“Donna, you stole it from a drunk at the local _casbah_!”

“Picked her pocket.” She correct “So, I don’t think that’s a very good-” she tries to push him away from the guard as he got distracted, trying to escape. If the woman recognized her, this would probably not end up well to her.

Donna tried to find easy ways out. The place was mess, first they went through the male section of the prison and the air was heavy, not only because it stank like crazy, but also because they could see that people were often killed there and that the seats were sold like it was an actual attraction. A freakshow indeed.

“Stop being so ridiculous, you brought us here.” He stops and looks at the guard, “Now, why exactly is this woman in prison for?”

“This I did not know. But when I heard you were coming, I had to ask her that myself.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said…” he sounded amused “That she was only looking for a good time.”

A couple of guards yelling in Egyptian pull through a woman bofore them behind thick metal bars. The woman is covered in dirt, her blond curly hair is greasy and as dirty as the rest of her clothes. Clothes that obviously didn’t belong to her, but probably to some man or even bigger woman since the legs of her trousers and sleeves of her shirt were too long and large and the last one, rolled ‘till the muscles of her arms filled the space. Honestly, she seemed ready to fight everyone in that prison.

“This is- this is the woman you stole it from?” he tried to say, a bit flustered.

“Yes, exactly. So why don’t we go sniff out a spot in the tiff in…”

“Who are you?” the heard the woman speak for the first time

“I’m just a local sort of missionary, spreading the good word and all that-” Donna approximated to her “Now, this is my brother, John.”

“How do you do?” he tried

“Yeah, well. You will do; Guess I don’t have much of a choice, uh, skinny boy?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Someone screams something in egyptian in the back, the guard excuses himself for a moment.

“Ask her about the box”. Donna mumbles next to him

“Uh, we have found- Hey, hello. Excuse me.” Rose looks at them with almost no interest, “We both found your uh, puzzle box. And we’ve come to ask you about it.”

“No.” she states

“No?”

“No. You came to ask me about Hamunaptra.”

Donna tries to shush her, but John is curious “How do you know that the box pertains to Hamunaptra?”

“Because I was there when I found it.” She stops for a second, dramatically. “I was there.”

Donna gets closer “But how do we know that’s not a lot of pig’s wallow?”

“Wait a moment do I know you?”

She stops “No, no. I’ve just got one of those faces…” Rose studies carefully said face, but Donna pulls back and falls on the ground before she can manage anything. She had been in enough fights to know when one was about to get punched.

“You were actually at Hamunaptra?” John goes over his sister to get closer, the woman intrigues him.

Rose smiles “Yeah, I was there.”

“You swear?”

“Every bloody day”.

“I didn’t mean that”.

“I know what you mean. I was there. Seti’s place, city of the dead”.

“Could you- Could you tell me how to get there?”

She glares at him

“I mean,” John takes his hat off, as if to hide his face from the guide guard “The exactly location”.

“Do you wanna know?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Do you really wanna know?” they get close, as if they were telling a secret

“Yes.” Closer

She makes him get closer calling him with her finger

And kisses him, “Then get me the fuck out of here!”

The guards pull her away and try to hit her with a bat, but Rose fights back as much as she can until they are able to drag her inside the prison again. John walks back, still in a state of shock. “Where are they taking her?”

“To be hanged.” Their circus owner guard has returned and watches the scene next to him. “Apparently she had a _very good_ time.”

 

Eventually John finds himself sitting by the guard and Donna in some sort of VIP seat to watch the woman be hanged for whatever the hell she did. The other prisoners seem as excited as the guards to watch the spectacle, John wonders if they all just went mad in there.

“I will give you one hundred pounds to save that woman’s life!”

“Sir, I would _pay_ one hundred pounds just to see her hang.”

“Two. Two hundred pounds!”

“Proceed!”

They wrap up the rope around her neck as she struggles, trying to get ride of the ropes that are tying her hands together.

“Any last requests, whore?” the man wrapping the rope asks

“Yeah, loosen the knot and let me go.”

He stops, looks at the guard in the upper section with a questioning look, and questions him in egyptian.

“OF COURSE WE DON’T LET HER GO!”

Embarrassed and interested in restore his power position the man ties the rope harder.

“Five hundred pounds!” John yells

“Wait!” the guard demands and looks at John, “And what else?” he questions, with a hand in John’s tight “I’m a very lonely man.” He tries, only to get hit in the back of the head by Donna and her book

Which proceeds to get him pissed.

“GO ON!”

And they open the trapdoor. Rose hangs painfully by her neck struggling to breath and still trying to get ride of the ropes tying her hands.

The guard laughs, “Ha! Her neck did not break!”

The prisoners scream in delight, even the ones who are next in line.

“Oh, I’m so sorry” he explains sarcastically “Now we must watch her strangle to death.”

John tries one last time

“She knows the location to Hamunaptra.”

That seems to get his attention, but he scoffs “You lie.”

“I would never!”

“Are you telling me that this filthy, godless, whore, knows how to find the city of the dead?”

“Yes.”

“Truly?!”

“Yes! And if you cut her down, we will give you… 10%”

“50%!”

“Twenty.”

“Forty!”

“Thirty!”

“Twenty-five!”

“Uh! Deal!”

“… Ugh!” he sighs “Cut her down!”

And she falls painfully on her side.

 

***************

 

**GIZA PORT - CAIRO**

 

“Do you really think she’s going to show up?” John says following his sister by the port, she made him carry her stuff again. Honestly, where was she going to use all those clothes?

“Yes, undoubtedly, knowing my luck. She may be an outlaw, but I know the breed. Her word is her word.”

“Well, personally I think she is filthy, rude and a complete-”

“Anyone I know?”

The woman shows up behind them with a questioning look on her face.

“Oh. Uh… Hello.” He manages to breath out

It was her again, Rose, he found out. Rose Tyler. Except she didn’t look like she did the day before, her hair now shorter, brushed back and hold by an elastic band, her curls almost glowed when the sun touched them; her clothes now fitted her perfectly, a loose white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her muscular arms, and clean trousers and boots. Besides looking ready to dig up Tutankhamun’s grave and fight him after, John also felt her presence very much inviting, he felt compelled to follow her wherever she would go. And honestly, she smelled like roses.

“Smashing day for the start of an adventure, uh Rose?” he heard his sister as she pushed him aside to greet her

“Yeah, yeah… _Smashing_ ”.

“Miss Tyler,” he interrupted, before Donna said some other awkward word, “Can you look me in the eye and guarantee me that this isn’t some sort of flimflam? Because if it is I am warning you-”

“Warning me? Look, let me put it this way: my whole damn garrison believe in this so much that without order they marched halfway across Libya and into Egypt to find that city. And when we got there, all we found was sand and blood.” She stops again for a dramatic effect, it seems to be her thing “Now get my bags too.”

And she boarded the ship.

Donna walked around him as John kept his eyes glued in Rose “Yes, yes, you’re right. Filthy, rude and a complete what now?”

She glared at him and he send her questioning look.

“Bright morning to all!”

“Oh no, what are you doing here?” John breathed out to the prison guard, he appeared to have more bags than Donna.

“I’m here to protect my investment, thank you very much.”

In sync they sighed.

 


End file.
